Surprise briefly flashed on his features but it barely registered for Elodie. “Raf.” Like her, he didn’t offer a last name, and she didn’t need one. He was just a customer in the bar, probably here to meet up with friends, or a date. The thought had her sobering, boxing away the spark of attraction she was feeling.
“Let me know if you need anything else,” she said, as he lifted the glass to his lips and took a sip, his eyes narrowing slightly before raking over her face and then, briefly, dropping lower, to her body, so a rush of heat flooded her system, despite her best efforts to control it.
“I haven’t seen you here before.”
“Should you have?”
“I come in often enough.”
“Well, I haven’t seen you here either.”
It wasn’t this guy’s fault that her ex-fiancé had reared his ugly head that afternoon. She shouldn’t be taking her irritationwith the whole male species out on him, particularly not when he’d been flagged by Allegra as a VIP. Then again, there was something in his eyes that told her he didn’t mind. In fact, maybe that he was even looking for this kind of interaction, rather than the deferential treatment he no doubt always received.
“At least, not that I remember,” she added, a quick smile flicking across her lips. Because if she’d seen him here before, she would definitely have noticed, and remembered. He was the definition of unforgettable, with that chiselled face and broad shoulders. Like some kind of billionaire pin up.
At the collar of his crisp, white shirt, she could just make out the hint of a tattoo, and before she could stop herself, she started to wonder about it. What would a man like this have inked across his chest?
“I would have remembered you.” He’d called her bluff and somehow, it took all the air out of her lungs. Just hearing him say that was like the lighting of a match, as though he were admitting that he found her attractive.
It wasn’t that she was insecure about her looks—she’d had enough guys hit on her to know she got noticed—but she’d been in a long, comfortable relationship for almost a decade. She couldn’t remember the last time Aaron had looked at her and told her she was beautiful, or complimented her outfit, or hair, or anything. Up until a moment ago, she would have said she didn’t need that kind of external validation, but hearing the hint of praise from him did something to her insides. “I’ve only been here a fortnight,” she murmured, swallowing hard at the raw quality to her voice—and what she feared it revealed. How could she be affected by some customer she’d literally just met?
His smirk was knowing though, as his hands curled around the fine crystal glass, his fingers long and tanned. He didn’t takehis eyes off hers and the strength of his gaze was like a caress. “Do you like it?”
It took her a second to work out what he was asking.
“Sure,” she husked. Then, because he was still staring into her eyes and it was making her nervous, and a thousand other things, she continued, “I mean, it’s not the job of my dreams or anything, but?—,”
“What is?” he interrupted.
How could she answer that? When she’d left school, she’d planned on coming to London to study business, but then, Aaron had got a part in a small play just off West End, and they’d needed Elodie’s income to supplement his. What had started as a temporary summer job working as a receptionist in an estate agency had turned into eight years of full-time work. She hadn’t hated it. In fact, she’d liked her team, the people she saw each day, and the steady income had meant Aaron could audition and Elodie could save for the wedding.
Bitterness twisted through her. “I don’t know,” she said, honestly.
“So you’re working here while you figure it out?”
Her lips pulled to the side. She’d finally enrolled in a business course. It wasn’t the university degree she’d wanted, rather a technical college, but so what? It was a small step towards reclaiming some part of the life that should have been hers, had she not fallen in love with Aaron and spent the better part of a decade propping uphisdreams, over hers.
“Something like that,” she agreed. He lifted the scotch to his lips, eyes assessing her. She could have moved down the bar, but she didn’t. It was as though her feet had lead in them, all of a sudden. “I suppose you have your life all figured out?”
When his lips arranged themselves into something like a smirk, it felt like a whole kaleidoscope of butterflies had been launched into her belly.
“In some ways.”
The answer was cryptic, and drew her in deeper, even when she knew she should move back down the bar and serve someone else. “That’s interesting.”
“Is it? How so?”
“I don’t know. You just seem like someone whose life is in order.”
His smile was a tight flicker of his lips. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
He threw back the rest of the scotch then slid the glass towards her.
“Another?”
He dipped his head once. “Join me.”
Those two words seemed to throb and hover in the air between them, a statement more than a question.
